Now here I was, smacking him in the face with peas, mad to find him looking at his ex on social media. Almost like love were an open option. Almost like I wanted Birdwine to myself, in my life as well as in my bed.
Well, not in my bed tonight. Not drunk and stinking. Not with my little brother hovering, as uncomfortable here in Birdwine’s shithole as he had been in Oakleigh Winkley’s Buckhead mansion.
“Paula?” Julian said, back already. He looked at Birdwine’s grip on my arm, how close our faces were, and upped his disapproval game; he went from rabbit all the way to prim religious auntie. “I think the extra sheets are dirtier than the ones on there.”
I straightened up and shrugged off Birdwine’s hand. Changing the sheets had been busywork, anyway. Birdwine was so foul we’d likely need to burn the whole bed in the morning. Even so, I couldn’t help remembering that back when Birdwine and I were a thing, he always had clean sheets around. He’d had good motivation, then. So was he sleeping by himself these days? I didn’t like how fiercely glad the idea made me.
I started levering Birdwine to his feet. “Give me a hand?”
Julian came and braced his other side, and we walked down the hall, toward the bedroom. It was a familiar path for me with Birdwine. I’d never once thought I would walk down it with an overly protective baby brother along.
Birdwine leaned on us heavily, favoring one leg.
“Birdwine, where’s the Hana file?” I asked him.
He slurred out a few words not even I could translate and shifted his arm down, resting his hand companionably on my ass.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, and he cackled that weird drunk laugh again.
“Issa dammmmm goodass,” Birdwine said.
Julian’s mouth set in an even tighter line.
“I know,” I said, and left his hand where it was. If Kai’s picture could be believed, I’d have this ass for quite a few years yet, but it had been underappreciated of late.
We helped him maneuver through the door, aiming right at the bed.
“Dump him facedown, in case he pukes,” I told Julian, who did not react. He might be naive, but he had been to college.
We timbered Birdwine over, and he crashed onto the mattress. He spoke into the pillow, saying the clearest thing he’d said so far. “Get in with me.”
Julian looked appalled, but I grinned outright to see there was a living ember down in Birdwine, sparking to me still.
“Not even a little tempted,” I told him. “But try me again after you roll around in bleach.” I meant it, too, though he might not remember in the morning. On his end, this could all be nothing more than drunk.
I looked at his wrecked eye. The corner of his bloody, swollen mouth. All the damage he had taken, walking his face into some other guy’s fist, repeatedly, while his own rough hands were as blameless and unbruised as any baby’s. I thought then, No, he’s still in love with me. When it came to love, I was the walking incarnation of fists, served in a convenient female package with a nice ass. He’d meant it just as much as I had.
I pulled the blanket out from under his feet and draped it over him. Julian waited behind me, his discomfort so thick that I felt it rolling off him in waves.
Birdwine’s breathing had changed to deep and stentorian. The sound of it called Looper, who came jingling in to leap up into the bed. He flopped at the foot.
“Oh, now you show, you worthless sack of fur,” I said, and gave his ears a rumple.
We backed out, Julian with his head down, peeking at me from under his flop of forehead curls.
“What?” I said.
He blushed and cut his eyes away. All he said was “Did you understand him? Where’s the Hana file?”
“We’ll have to hunt for it. I’ll check the computer, but it could be a real file, made of paper. Birdwine kicks it old school. Why don’t you dig around?”
We were back in the den now, and Julian said, “You want me to ransack a huge, crazy, drunk guy’s house.”
I waved a hand at the shattered chair, the overturned table. “You think he’s going to know?”
“Point taken,” Julian said.
That made me smile. It was something I would say, and he’d used my inflections. I took him by the shoulders and aimed him at Birdwine’s desk in the corner.
“Start there,” I said, and headed for the kitchen.
I sat back down with the craptop and swirled the mouse to wake up the screen. Stella Martin’s Facebook page reappeared. It was still open to a shot of the whole family, posed on the deck of the beach house. My breath caught. Now that I wasn’t focused so wholly on his ex-wife, I saw it instantly.
Which one of these things is not like the other?